All Kidding Aside: Humor Lowers Propensity to Remedy a Problem

Peter McGraw, University of Colorado, USAPhilip Fernbach, University of Colorado, USAJulie Schiro, University of Colorado, USA

Although humor increases attention and liking, humorous appeals may lower people’s propensity to remedy a problem because humor is associated with non-serious situations. Young adults viewed humorous and non-humorous PSA’s, which highlighted people’s ignorance about birth control; the humorous PSA resulted in less search behavior for sexual health information.